David Korten: Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth

Once a "very conservative republican," David Korten holds an MBA and PhD From Stanford Business School and worked for five and a half years as a faculty member of the Harvard University Graduate School of Business. After spending a number of years working in the global South, believing that all these low-income countries needed was to adopt America's capitalist system in order to resolve poverty, his perspective changed and he began to recognize the way in which our current economic system functions (and thrives) based on inequality, environmental destruction and social conflict. Realizing that our global economy was based on the premise that individual greed is the path to collective prosperity and that this concept was completely flawed, David Korten came full circle and became an advocate for an economic system that is life-centred and community-based. He has since authored several books, including: When Corporations Rule the World and The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community. His newest book and the title of this talk is called Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth, which argues for an end to the corrupt, phantom-wealth Wall Street money system. It must be replaced by a Main Street money system that favours life values over financial values, roots power in people and community, and supports local resilience and self-organization. This talk took place on October 29, 2010 at the Bronson Centre in Ottawa.